Bottas: Williams will be 'clever' now

Williams found itself in the spotlight at Silverstone over a team orders saga that appeared to cost Bottas dear.

He was told to initially hold station behind team-mate Felipe Massa when they ran one-two in the early stages after fast starts.

By the time Bottas was given the green light to pass Massa, it was too late as his tyres had fallen away enough to deny him a decent overtaking opportunity.

Both cars then lost out to the Mercees at the first pitstops, before ultimately slipping back to fourth and fifth in the wet.

Bottas has no doubt that should a similar situation arise in future, Williams will have learned from what unfolded at Silverstone and make the right calls.

"I had the opportunity [to pass Massa] at the beginning when I wasn't allowed to overtake," said Bottas.

"I think, especially in the first stint, my pace was quite a bit better, as we saw with Felipe's in-lap when I gained nearly one second.

"But it's easy to say afterwards. The team thought that was the best thing to do at that time - to freeze the situation, not for us to battle for positions and to lose any time against Mercedes.

"The timing is sometimes critical for these things and when I got the call to be able to race again I just didn't have that advantage any more.

"In the end it rained and we were really poor in the rain. I struggled getting the tyres up to temperature. Once you get below the temperature window it's just so difficult to get it back.

"Should have, could have, we can always say it could have been better, but in the end it was a weekend when as a team we learned quite a lot in terms of wet performance, strategy calls.

"For sure, we are going to be clever now in the future with what we do."

Bottas believes it was the surprising circumstances at the time that caught the team off guard.

"Generally we've been allowed to race since what happened in Malaysia last year, and it's been good," added Bottas, referring to Massa's decision to ignore a team order late in the 2014 Sepang race.

"But this was a special situation where we were one and two, which we haven't been for a while.

"For sure I think we will do better next time."